


If Birds Can Fly

by lovecatcadillac



Category: Bomb Girls
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-13 06:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovecatcadillac/pseuds/lovecatcadillac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing moments from <i>Jumping Tracks.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Shaw Media/Global TV.

There are certain kinds of people Betty McRae just plain doesn’t like. Rich folks. Snobs. Airheaded girls. Oversexed, meathead guys who think that women’s sole purpose in life is to look pretty, cook five-course meals at a moment’s notice, put out for any man who whistles after them, and spit out babies. As it stands, Betty hasn’t quite decided which category Kate Andrews belongs to.

Kate is a new factory girl who has moved into the room across from Betty’s in the rooming house. She’s on Betty’s shift at work, too, so Betty is responsible for training and supervising her. Betty saw from her papers that Kate is twenty-four years old, but honestly, Betty’s seen sixteen-year-old girls more equipped for life than that timid little mouse. Last night, in the rooming house, Kate just about had a fit at the thought that she wouldn’t be able to lock her bedroom door, like she was scared the other third floor girls would rob her blind the minute she turned her back.

If that were the only thing Kate had done, Betty could just forget about her entirely, but this morning, on the line, Kate dropped her amatol can. It’s one of the most dangerous things a worker can possibly do, in a place like this. The can was nearly empty, so it just made a loud bang and sparked a bit, but Betty’s not in the habit of going easy on people who put everyone else in jeopardy. Firing is far too good for anyone who makes a mistake like that.

Yet somehow, it’s been four hours and Kate is still an employee here. Betty keeps going over and over it in her mind, and she’s still not quite sure how that happened. Betty told Kate she was done at Vic Mu, Kate’s eyes filled up with tears, and Betty … just backed down and let her stay.

All the new girls will be spouting crocodile tears now, to try and get round Betty. It just goes to show what a moment of weakness can cost you. Betty honestly thought she had a heart of ice when it came to anyone who compromised the factory’s safety. She’s proven it over and over, which just makes Kate even more puzzling. Kate is far from the first worker to cry in front of Betty, but she’s the only one Betty hasn’t canned on the spot for a mistake that big, even on their first day.

“Just remember to be nice,” Edith says, taking the work station on Betty’s right, snapping Betty out of her reverie.

“Nice to who?”

“Seems you’ve got yourself a little shadow.” Edith nods at the main doorway from the canteen.

Betty looks over her shoulder. The rest of the Blues are returning to their stations for afternoon shift. Most of them are obviously reluctant to get back to work after getting twenty minutes to rest their aching bones. By contrast, Kate Andrews has broken away from the crowd, hurrying back onto the floor in double-quick time, her gaze fixed on one work station in particular. Her eyes are as young and sad as any Betty has ever seen, but her mouth is fixed in a determined line – which is, again, somewhat at odds with her soft, reticent voice when she reaches the amatol line and asks Betty, “Do you mind if I work here?”

“It’s a free country.” Betty is severely bemused. Usually, the new girls’ strategy for dealing with Betty after she’s shouted at them is to squeak out, “Can I get a sub?” and then run like the dickens whenever they see Betty coming. They do not take the work station next to Betty’s and try to engage her in conversation.

“I didn’t see you at lunch,” Kate ventures, after a moment. “Vera and Edith said that you usually sit with them...?”

“I decided to sit someplace else today.” The second Betty saw who Edith and Vera had inexplicably chosen to eat lunch with, Betty opted to sit with Hazel instead. It’s not often that two such spectacularly annoying people start on the same day: Gladys Witham, the poor little rich girl, and Kate Andrews, the walking disaster. If anything, Kate is the worse one of the pair. At least Gladys is safely up in the office, where Betty won’t have to deal with her if she doesn’t want to.

“I was hoping you might turn up,” Kate says. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Betty gives a shrug. “If you wanna say something, here I am.”

To Betty’s right, Edith gives a wry chuckle. It’s the sound of her deciding not to get involved in what will surely devolve into Betty making a new girl cry … again.

Kate seems to steel herself before she says, “Please tell me if I make any more mistakes. I don’t want to do anything else wrong.”

“Well, that is my job,” says Betty curtly. “I don’t know about you, but _I’m_ focussed on doing my job, and doing it well.”

She looks sideways to find Kate’s eyes lowered, her shoulders slumped forward. Something about Kate’s stoic acceptance of Betty’s bad-temperedness irks Betty. _Show some backbone,_ she thinks irritably. _Roll your eyes or something, like you can’t believe how mean and unreasonable I am. Smirk like you can’t wait to run off and tell everybody what a dragon that McRae broad is. Don’t just stand there and take it! Don’t you have any pride?_

As aggravating as Betty finds people who can’t stand up for themselves, when she next speaks, it’s to make a clumsy gesture at goodwill. “I know it’s hard being leered at while you’re trying to work. That can’t be helped. It’s just what men are like. We’ve gotta be twice as tough as them, just to get by. Show ‘em some gumption and they’ll steer clear.”

Kate’s eyes flicker up, at long last. “Like they do with you,” she says.

“They’re not all bad,” Betty says gruffly. “Don’t get me wrong, most of them _are_ completely full of shit – Archie Arnott, for instance – but Marco Moretti’s a good guy. Flirts with anything that moves, but he doesn’t think that any girl who says no to him is a frigid cow who doesn’t deserve his respect.”

Marco tried to chat Betty up when they first worked together. She could tell it was courtesy flirting, not a genuine attempt at seduction. Marco’s not much for mouthy girls who wear trousers, he prefers really feminine women. Betty can understand what the appeal is. She figures that where she’s concerned, it’s probably the sheer novelty value, after spending her life surrounded by so many men, and being so butch herself. (Betty never heard the word “butch” before she came to the city. She still doesn’t know if it’s quite right for her, but she figures twenty-eight is too old to think of herself as a tomboy.)

With a jolt, Betty remembers where she is. She could kick herself for even thinking about _that_ around someone like Kate Andrews. She can almost feel Kate being corrupted just standing next to her.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you, though,” Betty goes on. “All that business with the trays this morning. Didn’t they tell you not to do that when you took the test to get in here? Keep your eyes on your work, call for help if you have a spill, does that ring a bell?”

“I think so,” Kate says vaguely. “I suppose I wasn’t listening.”

“Hmm.” Betty sighs. “Let me remind you that there are hundreds of people in this factory. I’ll tell you if I see you’re doing something wrong, but you’ve got to come and ask me if you’re not sure, okay?” There is a slight pause before she adds, a little more forcefully, “I can’t be all the time looking at you.”

“I guess you’d prefer I asked you a stupid question than made a stupid mistake.”

“Well, if you want someone brutally honest, I’m not about to mince words. You’ve gotta be a particular kind of bitch to train firsties. Putting the fear of God in ‘em is key.”

Kate is startled. “Oh, I don’t think you’re – one of those.”

“A bitch?” Betty asks lightly, wiping off the spout of her amatol can.

Kate shakes her head. “Not at all.” Clearing her throat, Kate stammers, “So, um, what do you like to do in your spare time?”

Betty never thought she’d see the day when she would meet someone who was even worse at making small talk than her. “Go out, have a drink, have a smoke. Normal stuff.”

“The girls were talking about the dance tonight at the Sandy Shore Pavilion,” Kate says. “I wondered, have you ever gone?”

Betty shakes her head decisively. “I don’t go anywhere near the ocean. There’s German submarines out there, ain’t you read the papers?”

“Except...” Kate hesitates. “I think that’s not an ocean. It’s just a big lake.”

Betty looks at Kate, whose eyes are once again on her tray. She’s biting her lip. Is she trying to stop herself laughing? Normally, Betty would let rip with a cutting remark, to let everyone within hearing distance know that no fresh-faced little upstart in her first coverall gets away with giggling at her … only she can’t think of a thing to say. She hasn’t been this flustered by someone in ages. No, no, not flustered, annoyed _._ That’s what it is.

“I’m from the prairies. Water’s water,” Betty snaps. It’s far from the best retort she’s ever made, but it’ll have to do, because honestly, Betty is less concerned about putting Kate Andrews in her place, and more interested in forgetting that she ever made such an ass out of herself to begin with.

Suddenly, Edith is tugging urgently at Betty’s arm. It’s far from a happy distraction, though, because she’s indicating two airmen crossing the floor. A hush falls over Blue Shift as they begin climbing the steps to the office. The stencil line, the amatol line, the cordite line all fall deathly silent as every woman with a son or husband in the armed forces – which is everyone, more or less – begins praying very hard indeed.

“What do you think they want?” Edith asks in hushed tones, as they disappear through the office door.

Every woman on the floor is making frantic deals with God in their heads. _Not my husband, not my son,_ they beg as one, with a few of the younger girls, the ones fresh out of high school, starting to panic and silently plead, _Not my boyfriend, not my brother..._

“Maybe it’s a message for someone in the office,” Betty says. _Better one of them than one of the Blues,_ she thinks, but can’t quite muster the necessary spite, even just thinking it silently. Military uniforms are never a good sign around here.

“That’s quite enough speculation,” Lorna, the floor matron, says as she passes behind them. With anyone else, she would call it gossiping, but she likes Betty and Edith best out of everyone on Blue Shift. “Back to work, girls.”

Everyone’s hearts sink as the office door opens and Mr Akins descends the stairs, accompanied by one of the airmen. “Lorna, I need to speak with you,” he calls.

Lorna goes stock-still. Her back is to them, but Betty can certainly picture the expression on her face. She always talks about her sons Stanley and Eugene with such love, such pride...

“Oh, Lorna...” says Edith softly, but she can’t hide the relief in her voice. Awful as it is, Betty doesn’t blame her one bit. She’s got two kids under the age of ten, and no family here in Toronto – aside from her mother-in-law, but Edith makes no secret of the fact that they don’t get on. For Edith to lose her husband would be disastrous.

“Yeah,” Betty agrees. “Poor Lorna.” They watch her walk over to Mr Akins, so slowly, like she hopes he might change his mind.

They watch as Lorna stands listening to Mr Akins. She’s trembling, Betty can see it. Then, to their utter surprise, Mr Akins laughs at something Lorna says. Betty and Edith exchange a puzzled glance. _He can’t possibly be laughing and telling her that her sons are dead, can he?_ Betty wonders, perturbed. _Nobody’s that awful at breaking bad news._

The longest moment in the world trails by as they realise that it’s not Lorna. Yet somehow, it’s much too quick when Lorna turns on her heel and starts to approach the women on the amatol line. The silent clamouring reaches a crescendo – _Not my baby boy, not the love of my life, not the man I was supposed to marry!_ every woman except for Betty is shrieking without making a sound – which ends so abruptly as Lorna’s eyes pick a face out of the line. She says a name. “Edith?”

Slowly, deliberately, Edith takes off her gloves and cradles them against her chest. She looks so small as she steps out of the line. Betty wonders if she ought to go with her, to see if there’s anything she can do, but it’s all just wishful thinking. Betty is rooted to the spot.

Lorna takes a deep breath. “Edith, I’m so sorry, but Doug –”

If she says anything more, it is lost in Edith’s wail of anguish. Edith crumples to the ground, dissolving into sobs. Lorna tries to help her up, to help her walk, but Edith is crying so hard that Lorna _and_ the young airman have to support her off the floor. As the sound of Edith’s grieving moves out of earshot, a terrible, towering, billowing silence fills the factory as everyone is simultaneously weak with relief that it wasn’t them, and wracked with guilt for being so relieved.

Betty feels like she’s been hit over the head with a sledgehammer. When nobody you love is fighting at the front, it’s easy to forget that lives are being lost, that a person’s entire world can change in the space of a second. Edith is all alone now, with two dependent children to bring up on the pitiful wages they get. She thought she was going to grow old with Doug, and in a flash, it’s all gone. In fact, it’s probably been gone all day and most of last night. Edith slept and dreamed of her husband, rose, ate her breakfast, guided childish arms into jacket sleeves and waved goodbye to her kids, never suspecting that the man she loved was gone. Betty couldn’t think of anything worse than walking around like that, with God and his angels sniggering up their sleeves at you.

_He’s a bastard,_ she thinks viciously. Betty doesn’t believe in God, hasn’t since she was a kid, but she’s got to blame someone for doing this to her friend and God seems as good a person as anybody.

Someone begins to sing. It takes Betty a moment to realise that it’s Kate. Other girls sometimes sing on the line, but Betty always swings around and tells them to knock it off, that this is a place of work, not an opportunity to show off for the floor boys. Betty doesn’t tell Kate to stop. She simply hasn’t the energy to tell Kate to stop. Besides, Kate has quite a nice voice.

Kate’s voice is more than nice, actually. Listening to her speak, the way she manages to make every word hesitant, you’d never think she’d have a singing voice like that. It’s so pure and sincere and _good._ Kate Andrews’ singing seems to make up for everything, every bad thing that ever happened in Betty’s life or anyone else’s. It’s like that voice is reaching through time and space and singing Doug McAllum to a quiet, dignified death, a gentle closing of the eyes, with ample opportunity - days, weeks, months, years - to hug his kids and kiss his wife, instead of the quick and terrifying end he met in the skies over Germany.

When the song fades away, Betty almost wants to shout for it to come back. It was nothing more or less than the most wonderful music she’s ever heard. She feels ... clean, somehow. How can she feel this clean so far into shift, when she’s soaked with sweat and chemicals?

It’s the damnedest thing, though. The second that Kate finishes singing, Betty can’t remember a word of the lyrics, couldn’t hum a single note of the tune. Her chest feels so tight, she feels pent-up and wretched, but some of what she’s feeling – quite a lot of it, really – has nothing to do with what just happened to Edith.

Perhaps, in a way, it’s best that she’s so numb right now. Betty tries her hardest not to think about anything except pouring the amatol correctly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Trigger warning for abuse.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Shaw Media/Global TV.

Shift is over now, and the change room is heady with steam from the showers. Half in and half out of frocks and blouses and skirts, the Blues chat light-heartedly to each other about how they intend to spend their evenings. Kate Andrews dresses with her back pressed right up against her locker. She pulls her clothes back on twice as fast as anyone else. Betty doesn’t blame her one bit, after what she saw in the showers.

There was a time when Betty was … kind of scared, actually, to shower with the other Blues at the end of shift. Scared she would look at someone for too long, and they would guess. Scared, idiotically, of what they would think of her, if they saw her naked. It wasn’t that she wanted anybody to like it, exactly, more that very few people outside her family had ever seen her bare. It was pretty stupid for her to feel that way, but Betty often feels like she was a lot younger than twenty-seven when she started at Vic Mu seven months ago.

Betty likes women, but that doesn’t mean that every woman she sees sends her into a frenzy of desire, even if they’re naked. Contrary to what people believe about queers, Betty is perfectly capable of controlling herself. She feels a vicious little surge of pride sometimes, at just how well she can control herself, at how little most women are able to affect her.

Though Betty doesn’t like to show it often, she knows what it is to be afraid. So when Kate complained, her voice tense and strange, “Nobody said we had to take showers!” it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Betty to turn her head and make the same patient reply she gives to all the new girls.

Betty wasn’t prepared for what she saw. Betty doesn’t know how anyone could be. Kate’s back was dark with bruises, crisscrossed with long, pinkish-white scars and several half-healed cuts. Someone’s fist, someone’s belt had made those marks on her. The easily shocked, gauche adolescent inside Betty wanted to gasp out, _“Oh, God, your back. Does it hurt?”_ The part of Betty that rises up in horror whenever she sees someone hurt or harmed – perhaps the bit of her that would’ve made an okay nurse – wanted to surge forward and help Kate, to rub salve on those marks of pain and fear, and never mind that they were both naked, there were more important things than that.

It’s moments like that when Betty is very grateful she is no longer fifteen, that she’s a factory worker and not a nurse. She didn’t say a word about the state of Kate’s back. She just said, “Your singing? … If I had a voice like that, I might actually believe in God.”

It was surprisingly eloquent, considering that all afternoon, working in sombre silence, Betty kept fighting the urge to turn to Kate and say out of nowhere, _“That was beautiful”_ or even _“Thank you for the song.”_ As the hours passed, so many of them that Kate wouldn’t have known what Betty was referring to, Betty just wanted to say it more. It was only when Kate said about her dad being a preacher that it made sense. If God exists for even one person in the world, he ought to exist for someone who can sing like that, someone who does him proud.

Suddenly, everything about Kate Andrews makes sense. Her skittish movements, the way she wraps her arms around her midsection to protect her ribs when she’s nervous, the tears in her eyes when Betty nearly threw her out on her ear this morning. Betty doesn’t _want_ those things to make sense. Not like this. She wanted to believe that Kate is one of those exasperating girls who’s never had a moment’s hardship in all her life but still won’t say boo to a goose. She wanted Kate to be just another person she doesn’t think twice about, but now Betty can’t stop. She can’t stop herself from wondering what kind of person could hurt somebody like Kate. Who could actually be sick enough to take a belt, or a whip, or God knows what to a sweet, harmless person like that?

 _What happened to you?_ she thinks, staring at Kate as though she can somehow see it, if only she looks hard enough. She’s never looked at any of her workmates this hard before. It’s one of Betty’s rules for getting by: never look too closely at other women in the change room. Accidental glances are fine, but being caught staring would be unforgivable.

Usually, it’s an easy rule to abide by. All she has to do is remember the way her buddy Chet snickered when her gaze lingered a fraction of a second too long on some pinup shots in his studio. “See something you like?” he asked, sneering. It was the first time anyone had ever called her out on it. If anyone had to notice, Betty supposes she was lucky it was Chet. Catering to perverts is his bread and butter, so nothing really shocks him. It still made her skin crawl. She vowed, then, to never be caught looking at any girl, not ever again.

She’s not staring at Kate because she’s seen something she likes. She’s staring because she’s worried.  Worried, and, well, rather ashamed of herself. How is she to know that the girls she’s recommended for firing before weren’t in the same situation as Kate? Betty remembers the agonised look on Kate’s face when she said that her family wouldn’t have her back.Maybe she ran off with a guy against their wishes, a guy who turned out to be no good. Perhaps they’ve disowned her, and that’s why she has to strike out on her own. If Betty had fired her, Kate would’ve had to go back to him...

She tries to stop herself thinking about it, before she comes up with a whole life story for Kate. She can’t be sure of anything, no matter how she felt when she saw Kate’s scars. _It’s not my place to ask. It’s none of my concern,_ she thinks, but not seriously. More like she’s anticipating what Kate would say, if Betty were to get her on her own and offer … what? There’s nothing Betty can do. Whatever happens between a man and his wife, or even a guy and girl who have set up house together, is private and protected, by men’s laws and God’s, too. The world is not organised to allow women to do anything much, if there isn’t a man involved.

But maybe she can look out for Kate, just a little. Just until Kate finds her feet.

The conversation going on around Betty is on an entirely different plane. “So, we’ll meet at Sandy Shores, tonight at eight?” Vera is asking Kate, all business.

Kate looks doubtful as she buttons her cardigan. “I’d love to, but...”

“But what?” Vera asks.

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be disrespectful?” Kate asks. “Going dancing the same day Edith lost her husband?”

Vera gently elbows one of the firsties away from the mirror and begins primping, trying her hair a few different ways. “I feel for Edith as much as anybody, but we’re at war. Someone gets killed overseas every day. Life is for living, and I intend to enjoy every second. We’ll pour out a drink for Doug. It’s what I’d want you girls to do for me, if I kicked the bucket.”

Betty snorts softly. That’s Vera, all right: beautiful and a little heartless.

Kate seems startled by Vera’s attitude. But slowly, Kate nods and agrees, “Life is for living.”

“And will you be living it up with us tonight, Betty?” Vera asks, meeting Betty’s eyes in the mirror.

Betty pretends to consider it. “Hmm, a magical evening of privates rubbing up against my good dress. Tempting.”

Kate shows no reaction to Betty’s double entendre. Vera giggles. “That’s the spirit. C’mon, maybe you’ll find true love.”

“Call me crazy, but I reckon I’ll pass.”

“Fine, stay home and alphabetise your sock drawer. Kate and I are gonna have fun.” She turns to Kate. “I’ll meet you outside the pavilion at eight sharp. Dress to impress. Ta-ta!” Vera sails out of the locker room.

Betty watches as Kate stares after Vera, her lips forming the words “dress to impress” like a prayer. “Somethin’ wrong?” Betty asks.

Kate gives an embarrassed shrug. “I forgot to ask her where it is.”

“Someone in the rooming house will know. They’ve all been to Sandy Shores before.”

Kate nods. “Sure. I’ll ask around.”

There is a pause. Betty sighs. “Look, I’ve never gone to the dance myself, but I know the neighbourhood it’s in. You take the number 19 street car. Just make sure you jump off at the same time as all the girls in dance frocks, and you’ll be fine.”

The gratitude on Kate’s face at these meagre instructions makes Betty’s stomach knot. Betty spent all day raising her eyebrows at the way the slightest show of kindness made Kate look like someone had set off fireworks behind her eyes. She feels like such a cow. It doesn’t look like Kate’s had much to be grateful for, before now.

“The number 19 street car. Got it.” Kate looks like Betty’s just handed her an enchanted sword, a golden key. Like everything is going to be all right as long as she chants those magic words, “number 19 street car,” to herself.

Kate clearly doesn’t know. Sandy Shores is no tea dance. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s frighteningly easy to get cornered and groped. The neighbourhood it’s in isn’t exactly safe, either – one of the other rooming house girls got mugged there just last month.

“How long have you been in Toronto?” Betty asks Kate.

“Just since last night.”

“I thought so. Listen, I’ll come with you on the street car. If you want.”

Kate’s expression makes it clear that this is exactly what she wants, maybe even more than she dared to hope for. “You will? Really?”

“Just to see that you get there all right. The transport system can be confusing at first, and I’m not having you miss work tomorrow because you stranded yourself in the middle of nowhere and had to spend all night trying to get home.” She doesn’t really know whether she wants to sound gruff or concerned or teasing, so the words come out a weird conflagration of all three.

Kate doesn’t seem to mind too much. “That’s really kind of you.” Kate looks at her. “Will you stay for the dance?”

“I’ll make sure you find Vera, and … I’ll stay for a couple of drinks. Maybe it’ll get Vera off my back for awhile, if I come along just this once.”

“I’ll be glad to have you,” says Kate, and she smiles at Betty. Kate’s smile is like her song, effortlessly sweeping away bad things and awful memories, until Betty isn’t thinking about shy, retiring factory girls she might have sent off to be beaten by their husbands. Instead, Betty is thinking, with a mounting panic and another not-unpleasant emotion she doesn’t want to name, about how against everything she intended, everything she _is,_ she has agreed to go out to Sandy Shores with a girl who is most certainly not like her.

Biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling back, Betty wonders exactly what the hell she’s gotten herself into.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Shaw Media/Global TV.

The minute that she agreed to go out dancing with Kate Andrews, Betty made a mental list of rules for getting through the evening with a minimum of discomfort. _Haul on any old outfit. Drink as little as possible. No touching Kate. No looking at Kate. No acting funny._ Preserving her dignity is the name of the game.

Betty has a feeling she’s destined to lose, because she’s already broken a rule before even leaving her bedroom. She fully intended to just iron a blouse and skirt, but she somehow ended up wearing the nicest dress she owns, with her hair freshly curled. For a whole second, she actually regretted not owning any high heels, before remembering that she can’t walk in them to save her life. Her flat shoes and thick, black socks look a little funny with her dress, but there’s no way she’s messing around drawing seams up the backs of her legs with gravy browning, like the other girls here do. If you go out like that and get caught in the rain, it stains your legs so you can’t wear a skirt for a week. Besides, drawing fake leg seams would feel just a little too artificial, like how girls with healthy appetites eat like sparrows when they’re out with a guy they like.

People at the factory would probably crease up laughing if they could see Betty looking this girly. Betty’s been a devoted pants-wearer since before the war. She’s been wearing them since she was a kid, to do farm work in. Contrary to what people say, Betty isn’t completely opposed to dresses and makeup. She just prefers trousers. But even if she wanted to, there’s no way she could get away with wearing trousers to Sandy Shores. Everybody wears dresses there, and she doesn’t want to stick out any more than she already does...

The shrill of a wolf-whistle makes Betty turn her head. “Looking good, Betty!” Phyllis says as she passes with Moira in tow.

“Would you take a look at that? Betty’s actually got _skin,_ ” teases Moira. “I thought you were all made out of trousers!”

“Better to be made out of trousers than prance around in nothing but your underwear, like some people I could mention,” Betty replies, her acid tone somewhat at odds with the way her palms are sweating, like she’s a fifteen-year-old boy taking a girl out to the flicks for the first time. She resists the impulse to wipe them on her skirts.

Betty must be blushing, because Phyllis whoops, “You’re meeting a guy, aren’t you? You _are!_ Betty’s got a date! Is it someone from Vic Mu?”

“Oh, sure, because that’s the only way I’d ever meet anybody,” Betty says. “It’s not a date. I’m going out dancing.”

Phyllis holds up her hands in mock surrender. “Sheesh, somebody’s touchy. You needn’t be. It’s nice to see you flaunting it, for once. You’d be real good-looking if you made more of an effort with yourself.”

Moira shushes her. “Leave her be, or you’ll put her off ever dressing up again. Go break some hearts, Betty!”

Betty waits until they’re safely inside Moira’s room before she turns to Kate’s door. “Kate?” she calls.

“Just a minute!” answers Kate. Betty waits with her purse held awkwardly under her arm. The door opens and out steps Kate, wearing a blue frock with white flowers. It matches her eyes. The mere fact that Betty has started noticing things like that makes her want to go running back into her room and slam the door. She never should have agreed to this. But she promised herself she’d make sure Kate was all right.

“Ready to go?” asks Betty, in a voice which says very firmly that there will be no commenting about dresses matching people’s eyes.

“That’s a lovely outfit,” Kate offers shyly.

Betty resists the urge to say, _“This old rag?”_ It’s such a cliché. Her brain seems to be full of clichés tonight. “C’mon, we’d best get moving. The street cars can be kind of patchy this time of night. There’ll be three in ten minutes, and then no more for an hour.”

Despite Betty’s dire prediction, they don’t have to wait long for a street car. As they take seats together, Betty realises that neither of them has said a word since they left the rooming house. She makes a stab at conversation. “So, what’d you think of the factory, your first day there?”

“It’s certainly different. I’ve never had a job before.” Kate pauses. “Do the floor boys _always_ curse that much?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t much like swearing. It puts me all out of sorts,” Kate confesses. Betty looks at her. Kate flinches as they both remember Betty cursing earlier today, and Kate not saying a word. “But I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon,” she adds hastily.

“Right,” says Betty. They grow quiet, unsure of what to say. It doesn’t help Betty’s mental blank when she notices, all at once, that Kate smells like freshly laundered clothes which have been dried in the sunshine. Kate smelling like that doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s September, for crying out loud. Everyone dries their clothes indoors, in front of the radiator.

It’s a nice smell, though. Betty’s not much for floral perfumes. She was, once. Someone she was ... involved with, long ago, used to wear a lot of lavender scent. Betty used to think it a fabulously sexy smell. Whenever Ruth left the room, Betty used to quickly squirt Ruth’s perfume into her own wrists, so she could carry that little bit of Ruth around with her. When people were ticking her off about snorting when she laughed or sitting like a lady, Betty would smell Ruth’s perfume and think, _Somebody likes me. Somebody wants me._

She was just a stupid kid back then, of course. She’d never do anything that soppy now.

Betty and Kate pass street after street in increasingly unbearable silence, with Betty trying her best to breathe through her mouth without looking like, well, a mouth-breathing moron. She hasn’t the slightest idea what to say to Kate, who keeps sneaking her little looks under her eyelashes. Should Betty be the tour guide, pointing out shops and restaurants? Should she ask Kate questions about herself? Perhaps that would be overly familiar. Vera, Edith and Hazel were all blurting out private information to Betty within five seconds of becoming friends with her: giggling about sex and relationships, complaining about in-laws, unbosoming themselves at the first opportunity and then looking at Betty like they expected her to do the same. But Betty’s never been able to do that.

Kate drops her purse. Her hand brushes against Betty’s as she moves around in her seat, trying to see where it fell. Betty recoils at that slight contact, her hand jerking away like Kate’s is on fire, but luckily, Kate doesn’t seem to notice. Once Kate sees her purse has rolled under the seat in front, she leans forward to retrieve it. Her hair falls forward, exposing the back of her neck. It’s very white.

“Butterfingers! What must you think of me?” Kate shakes her head as she sits back up. “I guess I’m a bit nervous.”

“Well, it’s always tough being in a new place,” Betty says. “You’re liable to be clumsy when everything’s new. I’d never been more than a day’s journey from home, before I moved here. First time I turned up to work and had to show my ID at the gates, I dropped my card in the dirt at the security guard’s feet. He probably thought I’d been hitting the sauce.”

 _Why the hell did I tell her that story?_ Betty thinks, pained. _Of all the stories I had to tell, I pick the one that makes me look the most like a dumb, drunken hick._

Kate just smiles. “You’d think I’d be used to being in new places.” At Betty’s questioning look, she goes on, “My family have always moved around a lot.”

“Because your dad’s a preacher?”

“That’s right.” Kate looks surprised. “You remembered.”

Betty shifts in her seat. “Well, because of what you said about your singing.”

“What does your family do, Betty?”

“We’re farmers. My parents own a dairy farm.”

“I always wanted to live on a farm, when I was a little girl. I’ll bet it was fun.”

A couple of years ago, Betty got suckered into taking some of her nieces and nephews to see that film _The Wizard of Oz_. Babysitting only served to hammer home for Betty that she likes kids best when she can hand them back to their parents. They did manage to make it all the way through the first song before they had any mishaps, so Betty is familiar with the black and white bits of that movie, at least. She’s inclined to think that if Kate had grown up on a farm, she would’ve been Judy Garland, leaning against a haystack in a blue pinafore, singing, _“Birds fly over the rainbow. Why, then, oh why can’t I?”_

Betty shrugs. “It was a lot of work. I’m grateful for it, but I still think I drew the short straw, being the only girl.”

“You’re an only daughter too?” Kate gives her a commiserating look, as though they’re both veterans of the Somme. “I’m the oldest of three. My little brothers are eighteen and twelve.”

“Has your brother joined up?”

“Um, no, he hasn’t. Richard wants to preach, to be like our father. He’ll be going to seminary in the new year, to start his training.”

“Oh.” Betty shrugs. “Well … at least there’s one person in the Andrews family who’s helping the war effort. Anyhow, my family’s depriving the army of far more soldiers than yours. None of my brothers are in uniform. Farming’s a protected occupation.”

Hurriedly, Kate says, “I think Richard would _like_ to enlist, but well – it was already decided, that he’s going to become a pastor, like Father. It’s expected of him.” Kate clears her throat, clearly uncomfortable – though whether it’s the fact that her brother hasn’t joined up, or merely talking about her family, Betty doesn’t know. “How many brothers did you say you had, again?”

“I’m the middle child of seven. Seems like I spent half my life babysitting them – the older ones as well as the younger ones.”

“And I thought Richie and Walt were a handful!”

“Rurals always have lots of kids. It’s a scam so they don’t have to pay farmhands,” says Betty with a smirk. “The boys and I liked getting to miss school when there were important chores to be done.”

Kate eyes her. “You didn’t like school?” It’s admirable how she manages to make a loaded question like that sound so innocuous, as if not liking school is some interesting little quirk that doesn’t mean a thing about you.

Still, Betty can’t help but feel self-conscious. “I barely went,” says Betty, snapping open her purse and peering inside as if the contents are simply fascinating. Usually, she’d make those three words sound like a fist waving in somebody’s face, not a plea to change the subject. The minute someone with big blue eyes and a gorgeous singing voice is asking her about not liking school, she gets all contrite.

“Neither did I.” At Betty’s questioning look, Kate elaborates, “I went for a little while, but my parents thought it would be easier if my brothers and I were taught at home, since we moved so much. I liked Mother teaching me much better than going to school with children I didn’t even know. I mean, what little girl doesn’t love staying home with her mommy?”

“Mmm.” When Betty was young, staying home with her mother always meant she was missing out on something exciting somewhere else. “Your mom’s a schoolteacher?”

“Oh, no. But she knew enough about reading and writing and maths to teach me.”

“Didn’t you miss being able to play with other kids? That was the only thing I ever used to like about school.”

Kate looks taken aback. Betty is afraid she’s pushed too far. “I suppose when I got a little older, I … but anyway, I went to Sunday school until I was twelve, no matter where we were. After that – well, you know. Girls need to stay home and help.” She laughs. The sound of it is so musical it almost covers up how clearly nervous she is. “I’m talking too much. I’m so sorry.”

 _I don’t think you are,_ thinks Betty. _I think you just don’t want to talk about it._

Luckily, the street car is at the top of a hill, and they are near the front, so Betty can point out the window. “There it is, the Sandy Shore Pavilion,” says Betty. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”

Kate rises out of her seat slightly, craning her neck to stare at it. Betty moves obligingly out of the way.

“Look at the lights on the water! Oh, my goodness, it’s so beautiful,” Kate whispers, more to herself than to Betty.

Betty wonders how on earth she didn’t notice how pretty Kate is the moment she laid eyes on her. Now, it’s like her brain is making up for lost time. Before she knows what she’s doing, she finds herself saying, “Yeah, it’s pretty special.”

They disembark from the street car and begin to make their way to the pavilion. To Betty’s relief, her palms have stopped sweating. She was so worried that Kate would notice, and ask, _“Say, why are you so nervous? Have you got a guy waiting for you in there? What do you mean, no? Why on earth would you be this nervous to be out with me? Why are you acting like you’re on a date or something?”_

“Do you think this dress is all right?” Kate asks.

Betty can’t help but laugh. Kate is clearly not the least bit interested in how many times she’s had to wipe her palms on her purse.“Well, you can hardly turn back and change now.”

“I know, but Vera said ‘dress to impress.’” She looks up at the building, seeing the other women and their dresses, rather than the lights on the surface of the lake. “I don’t feel so impressive right now.”

Perhaps the sheer absurdity of the situation – the fact that Betty is going to a dance at all, let alone with someone she barely knows – makes Betty reckless. Perhaps it’s just that she has to get it out in the open, so she won’t end up blurting out something far worse once she’s had a couple of drinks. Whatever it is, Betty finds herself saying, “I think you look good.”

It’s okay to say that. _“You look good”_ isn’t the same as _“You’re good-looking.”_ For all anybody knows, Betty could just be referring to the dress, not to Kate herself. She hopes Kate isn’t one of those girls who can’t take a compliment. It’s awkward enough just saying it, never mind having to reassure a girl that _yes,_ it is their colour, _no,_ they don’t look dowdy, and so on and so forth. Betty hates trying to pay other women compliments; she always ends up sounding so shifty.

Kate blinks. “Well, thank you,” she says. “That’s so kind of you to say.”

She keeps saying that, whenever anyone says anything remotely nice to her. Betty wants to say, _“I’m not being_ kind, _it’s the truth.”_ She’s said much too much already, though.

Kate points to the pavilion’s main entrance. “Look, there’s Vera.”

As they approach, Vera laughs at the sight of Betty. By way of a greeting, she says, “Y’know, I thought you were bluffing when you said you owned a dress.”

Betty rolls her eyes. “Of course I own a bloody dress. I’m female, ain’t I?”

“She came along to make sure I got here all right,” Kate tells Vera, before turning back to Betty. “I hope all supervisors are as nice as you.”

“They’re usually not,” Vera quips. It makes Betty’s back stiffen. She knows it’s a dig at supervisors in general, not at her. Still, Betty can’t help but worry that this looks suspect, accompanying someone she’s known a day to a dance.

“You look just gorgeous, Vera,” Kate says earnestly. It makes Betty feel uneasy. She wants to tell Kate, _“Put your eyes back in your head, people are gonna think you’re funny.”_

 _Cool it,_ she tells herself sternly. _You see queers everywhere you look. Kate’s just new to this. She’s not like you. Nobody in this place is._

“Thanks, kid,” Vera says with a wink, leading the way into the main dance hall. The pavilion is packed tonight, strewn with Union Jacks, heady with cigarette smoke and crowded with couples dancing with wild abandon. Vera’s eyes gleam as she takes in the scene before them, and she asks, “What do we reckon, girls?”

“Slim pickings,” says Betty. It seems like the safest remark.

“You’re impossible.” Vera turns to Kate. “You might as well know that Betty is freakishly particular when it comes to men. No-one ever measures up to her incredibly high personal standards. She’s waiting for Cary Grant to drop out of the sky with a bouquet of roses.”

“Shut it, Vera,” Betty says, lighting a cigarette. After she’s taken a couple of puffs, she realises that Kate is staring at her. Betty wonders, all at once, whether Kate feels the same way about smoking that she does about swearing. Betty’s smoked since she was twelve, caging cigarettes from her older brothers and smoking them behind the cowsheds on her parents’ farm. Her parents didn’t approve of women smoking, but Betty eased them into it. She grew steadily more open about it until the Christmas that she was twenty-three, when she rose from the table after dinner and announced, “I’m having a cigarette before I even think of doing any dishes,” in front of her parents and brothers and sisters-in-law.

There isn’t a person in the world she wouldn’t light up in front of now. Still, with the way Kate is looking at her, Betty has the craziest urge to stub out her cigarette, to pretend like she doesn’t smoke, would never do anything as uncouth as smoke.

Vera laughs at the expression on Kate’s face. “Isn’t it the worst when you forget your cigs? Betty, give the poor girl one, she’s gasping.”

“I don’t smoke cigarettes,” says Kate, blushing.

Betty _can’t_ ask Kate if she minds her smoking. It would look so odd, with Vera here. She would cheerfully blow smoke into Hitler’s face if she had the chance, but right now she feels almost panicked, at the thought that Kate might consider smoking disgusting. _“What are you staring at me like that for?”_ she wants to ask, but that would tell a lot more about her than it would about Kate. She takes a nervous drag on her cigarette in spite of herself.

They look at each other for a moment, before Kate averts her gaze. “I don’t mind if you smoke,” she says, almost too quietly for Betty to hear. Betty turns away, partly so she doesn’t blow smoke at Kate, and partly to try and get a grip on herself.

Vera continues on her remarks from before. “Now, those of us who aren’t insanely picky – like Kate and me – will be able to tell that there are some real dreamboats here tonight.”

Kate nods fervently, gazing at the dancers. After a moment’s hesitation, she asks, “What happens now? Do we ... go dance?”

Vera shakes her head and beckons them to follow. Moving away, she explains over her shoulder, “First, we get ourselves some drinks. Then we scope out our competition. Then we find ourselves some studs in uniform.”

“Oh,” Kate says, in a tone that might be excited or intimidated. She turns to Betty. “Come on, let’s go!”

Weaving through the crowd, Kate stares around like she’s never seen anything like this before. Betty goes to take Kate’s arm, but thinks better of it. _You don’t touch girls like her,_ Betty reminds herself. _Not preacher’s daughters who worry that going out dancing after someone they never even met died might be disrespectful._

The three of them manage to reach the refreshment table in one piece. “Would you do the honours?” Vera asks Betty, turning around to present herself to the room from her best angle.

“Sure.” Betty measures out glasses of pink punch and hands them to Kate and Vera.

As soon as Betty has put the ladle back in the punch bowl, Kate takes it up. She doles out a glass of punch and puts it to one side. “For Doug,” she says reverently.

Ordinarily, Betty would say something sarcastic about how she’s sure watered-down fruit punch was Doug McAllum’s drink of choice. She stays silent, because she’s surprised and a little touched that Kate remembered Vera’s offhand remark about pouring out a drink for Edith’s husband. Vera sure didn’t.

Kate sips a little punch, murmuring appreciatively as she does. She meets Betty’s eyes. “Won’t you have any?”

“Betty’ll have a stiff one,” Vera says, smirking. “The punch bowl is for _girls,_ after all, not tough broads.”

“You’re the broad who’s cruisin’ for a stiff one tonight, not me,” Betty shoots back. She looks askance at Kate, who gives no indication that she has any idea what they’re talking about. “You two go grab us a table, and I’ll meet you there.”

Lining up at the bar, Betty tries to keep her eyes forward. Normal girls don’t turn around to gawp at their mates every two seconds – to follow one particular workmate’s every move. She’s been looking at Kate far too much.

… But then again, it would probably be okay to look for just a second, just to make sure that Kate’s gotten through the crowd unscathed. Vera’s not the type to keep a hold of someone as they walk through a crowd. Kate could be getting accosted by randy soldiers right this second, too frightened to speak up for herself, while Vera strolls blithely ahead. Other girls look out for their friends on a night out. There’s nothing funny about that.

Betty peers back over her shoulder. Kate and Vera have found a table and placed their coats and purses on it. Vera is leaning coolly against the table, talking to Kate out of the side of her mouth – she doesn’t want to put anybody off, but she doesn’t want to look too keen, either. Vera’s got attraction down to a science. _I should take a page out of Vera’s copybook,_ Betty thinks ruefully.

Kate is nodding away at Vera’s running commentary, hands clasped neatly in front of her. She looks so fresh and pretty and hopeful, in her blue dress.She’ll probably have soldiers fighting tooth and nail to clasp her to their barrel chests before the night is through.

 _There,_ Betty thinks, turning back to the bar. _You know she’s all right. Now, don’t you dare turn around again. This is a golden opportunity to ignore her and do yourself some good. You’re just here to make sure she’s okay. You’re not here to gawp at her or grab her arm or any of that stuff. You’ve already gone too far, telling her she looks good. You’re so bloody obvious, it’s painful._

Even though Betty is perfectly well aware that Kate is just fine, that Vera is looking after her, that nothing is wrong, she can’t help but look again. She doesn’t have to look. She really shouldn’t look. But she wants to.

She turns to find that Kate is looking right over at her. There’s no mistaking it. She’s not watching the dancers, she’s not staring into space. Kate is gazing directly at Betty. When she sees that Betty is looking at her, she gives a smile and a little wave. It’s like she’s saying, _“Yes, I’ve been here the whole time, just waiting for you to turn around and notice me. Isn’t it good that you have?”_

And suddenly, Betty can’t stop herself from grinning any more.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Set after the dance, and their encounter with Gladys in the bathroom. I would like to say up front that I adore Gladys. Any negative sentiments expressed in this chapter aren’t intended as character-bashing, more as an exploration of Betty’s perspective of Gladys circa Episode 1 (which, as we all know, was not exactly rosy).
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Shaw Media/Global TV.

The rooming house is mostly asleep when they get back from the dance. Betty makes sure she goes up the staircase to the third floor first. She’s more practiced with getting up there in the dark – sometimes girls leave bits of laundry just lying around, so that you slip on them and nearly break your neck. Anyhow, she doesn’t need to see any more of Kate in that dress. She tells herself it’s so she doesn’t get caught staring. Really, it’s because she doesn’t want to make eye contact if she can possibly help it.

The evening went rapidly downhill after their confrontation with Gladys Witham in the bathroom. Betty’s not the least bit sorry she told Gladys off. Gladys needed to hear that not everyone is fooled by her I’m-just-like-you-only-better act. The only part Betty regrets is how she acted once she and Kate were left alone again. Betty doesn’t have it in her to fake a headache or pretend she’s feeling faint when she’s mad, like most girls do. When Betty is annoyed, everybody knows about it. It wasn’t Kate she was steamed at, yet Betty kept feeling more and more wound up every time she thought about Kate touching Gladys, and Gladys encouraging her like mad because it’s her due, after all, for people to dance attention on her. Betty grew so frosty that eventually, Kate quietly suggested that they just take the next street car home.

“Watch yourself.” Betty indicates the laundry lines swooping across the third floor hallway. “Jeannie nearly strangled herself running into one of those when she was sleepwalking one night.”

“I got it,” Kate assures her. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Betty says gruffly, turning to go into her bedroom. “Well, g’night.” She probably shouldn’t be so brusque, but she’s still mad as hell about Gladys bloody Witham. Who does she think she is, turning up to Sandy Shores and swanning over to Betty and Vera and Kate like she belongs, like she’s _just one of the gals?_ Gladys has some nerve, pretending like she doesn’t secretly think of them all as flea-bitten peasants. What a joke! What an absolute-

“Betty?” Kate’s voice is gentle in the half-darkness. It’s gentle everywhere, but Betty can tell Kate is treading lightly around her.

They look at each other, their hands on their respective door knobs. The few self-preservation instincts Betty has are screaming for her to pretend she didn’t hear, to fling herself inside her bedroom before she does anything else wrong. That part of her feels so raw, so humiliated and resentful about what a fool she’s made of herself tonight. But there’s another person inside Betty that’s like a child with hurt feelings, needful and naively trusting and hopefully wanting too. That part won’t let her flounce into her room. That part hangs on Kate’s every word, her every minute gesture.

After a moment, Kate speaks. “That was the first dance I’ve ever been to.”

“Ever?” Betty blurts it out before she’s thought it through properly. It sounds bad, saying it like that. Betty spent all night assuming that it was Sandy Shores itself that had Kate so amazed. She figured Kate was probably accustomed to tame little church socials, not debauched, smoky swing dances full of rowdy soldiers and loose women. She feels a pang of conscience. Sandy Shores was Kate’s first ever dance, and they had to go home early because Betty came over all _funny._

“Ever.” Kate pushes her hair behind her ear. “I guess you could probably tell. I stuck out a bit.”

_Not nearly as much as me,_ Betty thinks ruefully. “I didn’t notice anything funny.”

Kate says, “I’m happy you came along. It wouldn’t have been as fun without you.”

There is no way Betty can let herself answer. She’ll think, _Yeah, it wasn’t so bad, huh? See you in the morning!_ What will come out of her mouth will be something like, _“I know you don’t want to hear this, but when we danced I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was so special. I never thought it could be like that.”_ Betty can’t take that chance. She’s taken so many already. So she just stands here, staring like a halfwit.

Kate’s eyes shine from across the hallway. “Goodnight, Betty,” she says softly. Those words have never felt quite so much like a promise - like a kiss - as they do right now. She slips into her room and closes the door, and Betty is left with her thoughts.

Finally alone in her bedroom, Betty heaves a sigh. She scrambles to wipe off her makeup, to kick off her shoes and undress. She needs to get into bed and close her eyes and forget all this. Shift starts at eight tomorrow, after all. She doesn’t drape her dress over the head of a chair, or hang it off the back of her door. It goes straight back into the closet. She’s not wearing it again anytime soon. Besides, she doesn’t want to wake up tomorrow with it _staring_ at her, reminding her about tonight.

Betty shouldn’t feel so uneasy about what happened. She did what she set out to do. Kate got to and from Sandy Shores without being robbed or harassed, and that should be all that matters. Aside from some minor embarrassments, the evening went just fine. They had a few drinks, had a laugh with Vera, listened to a terrific band and even managed to get out on the dance floor themselves. (But no, Betty can’t think of that, not right now. She’ll start second-guessing everything about herself, fretting about having held Kate’s hand too tightly, worrying that her face gave away too much...)

The only truly bad bit was what happened in the bathroom with Gladys Witham. It makes Betty cringe to think about how badly she overreacted after Gladys left the bathroom in a huff. It wasn’t fair for Betty to take out her frustrations on Kate. Kate’s practically a kid in a lot of ways – all that business about being kept at home with her mother all the time, and then her admission that tonight was her first dance. She wasn’t to know how weird it looked, her complimenting Gladys on her dancing, throwing her that appealing look, and then stroking her leg.

(She didn’t act like a kid when she asked Betty to dance. You would have thought Kate was an old pro, the way she took the lead. Betty was so surprised that it was all she could do to be as gentle as possible when she was touching Kate’s back, in case she pressed down too hard on any of her wounds. But when Kate smiled and nestled against her, suddenly Betty wasn’t worrying about hurting anybody any more.)

Kate didn’t ruin Betty’s evening. It was that Witham snob. Betty’s glad she told her off. She’s so patronising, thinking that because they’re poor and she’s rich, they’ll fall all over themselves to include her. It’s insulting, Gladys pretending she’s the same as them. She doesn’t even need a job. Working at Vic Mu is a lark to her, a silly diversion to while away the time until she gets married. If Gladys got canned, she’d just shrug her shoulders and go back to playing croquet, or whatever it is that rich people do with their endless hours of spare time.

Kate’s so green she didn’t even realise that Gladys was mocking them. In fact, she seemed positively enchanted. Betty can’t help but remember Kate’s reaction when Gladys first walked through the factory gates. “Movie star,” she said. Betty didn’t care. She’s not like her friend Hazel, she doesn’t resent the office girls’ nice things, their pretty manners or good breeding. It wasn’t grace and charm that got Betty out of the boonhicks, and they’re sure as hell not going to help Betty get her own place someday. Coveting other people’s things doesn’t get you anywhere in life.

In spite of it all, when Kate stroked Gladys’ stocking in the powder room at the dance, Betty did feel jealous. Jealous of all the things normal girls take for granted. Jealous of the way they can be close to each other without even wanting to, without ever having to worry about people getting the right idea. Betty’s couldn’t hope to get away with asking to touch another woman’s leg, not even if she happened to follow it up by proclaiming that she loved all men and wished to be wed to one within the next fifteen seconds.

Not that she particularly wants to touch Gladys. No, it’s far worse than that. The fact is, when Kate’s eyes swivelled from Betty to Gladys, when she touched Gladys’ leg and got that little hitch in her breath – it made Betty want to be Gladys, for a second.

The mere thought that she was envious of Gladys Witham is enough to make Betty bang her head against a wall. She’s not proud of … of being the way she is, but she’s got a certain amount of pride in being a good worker and a loyal friend. She knows she wouldn’t be those things if she’d been brought up like Gladys. Gladys probably rode out the Depression in some cushy boarding school for rich brats, totally unaware that just outside the manicured lawns of her world, people were being evicted from their homes or even starving.

All the things that make Gladys who she is – the glossy car that dropped her off at the factory gates, the silk stockings, the massive rock on her finger, the impressive dance moves – don’t matter a bit to Betty, but those are the things that made Kate sit up and pay attention. Why shouldn’t they? Most girls are far more impressed by someone with fancy clothes and movie star good looks than by a woman who wears trousers and swears at the floor boys. It’s the way of the world.

It’s just that … all her life, Betty’s steered well clear of places like Sandy Shores, because she thought girls like her didn’t belong there. Tonight, Betty finally understood how other girls feel when a handsome uniform holds out his hand – only the invitation wasn’t from a man, but from a woman with a sweet smile and hopeful eyes. And for a moment, that was perfectly all right. Even though they were both women, even though Betty can’t dance worth a damn. None of that mattered.

It’s stupid, but it seemed like Kate felt the same way, when they were dancing. Betty remembers wincing at her own clumsiness and looking up into Kate’s eyes, expecting to be met with a pained expression, only to find Kate nodding and smiling like Betty was doing splendidly. Kate got bold and twirled her, and when they came back together after the twirl, they were dancing so close, just like any other couple in the pavilion.

She thought that moment was as special for Kate as it was for her. But then, five minutes later, Kate was making eyes at another girl, one as different from Betty as night from day...

Kate is not the kind of woman Betty came to Toronto to fall for. Not that she came to Toronto to fall in love, or anything idiotic like that. Betty came here to help Canada win the war, and make money so she can buy herself a house someday. But, well … she’d be lying if she claimed that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. The thought that there might be women like her here. That maybe, she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life mooning around after girls who would never give her the time of day, or if they did, would rather die than admit it. Betty’s found the vice dens and she’s met a few women like her, but nobody who made an impression. She never dreamed that the first person – the first woman – to really get under her skin here would be a wide-eyed firstie with a murky past.

It’s unacceptable. She can’t be this way about Kate Andrews. Kate’s an innocent. _Well,_ Betty thinks, remembering her scars, _perhaps not a total innocent._ But the fact remains that Kate is not like Betty.

_She probably thinks I’m nuts, going off my rocker at her and Gladys Witham,_ she thinks in spite of herself. _She probably thinks I’m_ queer, _which amounts to the same thing. God, I’ve wrecked everything._ Once Kate realises that most women don’t act like jealous, possessive girlfriends if their workmates chat to someone else in the bathroom at a dance – once she realises that the way Betty acts around her is not remotely normal – there’s no way she’ll want to keep being around Betty.

Why did a night with such a wonderful part in it have to turn out so badly?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Since this chapter is set immediately after Vera’s accident, I am warning for blood and injuries. I’m warning for abuse as well, to be on the safe side. Please let me know if I should add any more.  
> Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Shaw Media/Global TV.

As the paramedics bear Vera out on a stretcher and load her into the ambulance, the women of Blue Shift cluster together on the factory floor. Quite a few of them are in tears. When they were waiting for help to arrive, Merle Saunders became completely frantic and had to be slapped to make her stop screaming. She’s crouched on the floor now, biting the back of her hand, while a few of the others try to bring her around. Normally, Betty thinks people who are prone to hysterics shouldn’t be working in a place like this, but she can’t really blame Merle. Women on other shifts have been injured – one poor little seventeen-year-old on Green Shift even lost two fingers in a conveyor belt – but Vera’s accident is the worst the factory has seen so far.

Betty stands apart from the others, her gloved hands deep in the pockets of her coverall, trying to look anywhere but the place where Vera fell. She’s just the same as everyone else, for once. She has no idea what to do, or who should be handing down instructions. Lorna went in the ambulance with Vera (Betty has a feeling she would have done that even if Vera had any next of kin listed in her personnel file). Mr Akins and the other office staff have barricaded themselves in where it’s safe, under the guise of trying to contact Vera’s folks. None of them have so much as peeped down at the floor – except for Gladys Witham, who came running out of the office door, made it almost halfway down the stairs before another secretary dove out and dragged her bodily back inside the office. Trust her to try and stick her nose in where it’s not wanted. She didn’t make another go of it, after her friend hauled her back. Betty supposes slumming isn’t as much fun when there’s bloodshed involved.

It’s strange, the things a person notices at a time like this, and the things they don’t. It seems like hours after Vera has been taken away that Betty’s eyes pick someone else out of the crowd, the only other person standing alone. It’s Kate. Kate isn’t crying. Her head is bowed, her eyes are closed. She hasn’t crossed herself or dropped to her knees or anything, but Betty can tell that she’s praying.

_I can’t stay here._ Betty doesn’t actually think the words inside her head. They just well up inside her, rising with the horror that threatens to engulf her, to level the entire factory if she doesn’t get out right now. Betty blunders outside, into the grey light and cold billowing air. Nobody sees her go.

She winds up at the smoking station, outside in the yard. It’s almost as if Betty expects to find Vera there, whole and unharmed in one of her candy-coloured sweaters, blowing perfect smoke rings and musing about which of the floor boys she should go out with next. Betty doesn’t dissolve into tears when she finds the place deserted, when she comes dangerously close to thinking that Vera might never smoke here again. The nearest Betty gets to breaking down is sitting on the ground with a thump, like a little girl.

What if Vera dies? It seems impossible, unimaginable, when Betty thinks of the way Vera was last night at the dance: flaunting her curves, eyeing up Marco Moretti, ribbing Betty about men and dresses. It’s different, somehow, to Doug McAllum being shot down over Germany. Betty never met Edith’s husband, he was always someone she heard about through Edith. She was much sadder for Edith and her kids than she was for Doug personally. But Vera is ... Vera. Completely and utterly vital and alive. People like that don’t get killed or even hurt. Except when they do.

Back when they were firsties together, Betty didn’t like Vera one bit. She wasn’t shy about making her displeasure known. Vera ignored Betty’s long-suffering sighs and muttered comments for a couple of weeks before cornering Betty in the locker room.

“You need to know I’m not scared of you,” Vera said matter-of-factly. “You think my life hasn’t been one long string of sensible girls like you groaning like a dying ox every time I open my trap?”

“Is this you trying to have it out with me?” Betty snapped. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Come on, Betty. Did I steal your man and then plum forget about it? Because if I did, I am sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I am. You know how it is when you’re an incorrigible hussy. Or maybe you don’t, being so sensible, and all.” At that moment, they realised that two girls from Red Shift were eavesdropping. With a smirk at Betty, Vera raised her voice. “That’s right, an incorrigible hussy.”

Betty laughed, then. She couldn’t help it. Vera was the first person at Vic Mu to really make her laugh...

Betty feels almost mad at Edith for not being here. Edith would have been marvellous, if she weren’t off mourning Doug. She would’ve been able to get Merle Saunders to stop shrieking without resorting to smacking her in the face. Betty was _useless,_ dithering and fretting like a goddamn girl, helping precisely nobody. She can’t understand it at all, because usually Betty is marvellous in these types of situations too. Betty’s not the least bit squeamish when it comes to blood. It’s one of the things Betty feels the most pride in … one of the only things about herself she can feel pride in.

“Pull yourself together,” Betty says out loud, and then, because that doesn’t do a thing to get her moving, she mutters, “Come on. Come _on_...”

Out of the high-pitched, humming silence that the ambulance siren left behind, Betty hears someone approaching. She doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s Kate. They’ve known each other less than three days, and Betty has already memorised the sound of her footsteps. This does not bode at all well.

Kate sits down beside her. She doesn’t make a peep, just places her hand gently between Betty’s shoulders. A moment passes before she starts to rub Betty’s back, slowly. Kate’s touch makes Betty feel slightly less like being sick, but more and more like she’s going to burst into tears.

“Some first week at work you’ve had,” Betty says finally. “First Edith’s husband, and now-”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” says Kate, and Betty believes it, because her voice is so quiet, so strong.

_But I do,_ thinks Betty hopelessly. _I do, and that’s why I’ve been keeping so close. That’s the only reason, I swear. I’m not funny about you. You’re different to anybody I’ve ever met, but I can’t be that way about you._

“I’m not usually like this,” whispers Betty. “There have been accidents here before. It’s not about that. It’s ‘cause it’s Vera.”

“Vera’s your friend. You care about her. And it-” Kate’s voice shakes a little. Betty can almost feel Kate willing herself to go on. “It was horrible. But everything is going to be all right, I promise.”

It’s sick and silly and pathetic and perverted, but suddenly, Betty wants to kiss her. Just dive forward and lay one on her. Not just one, either. She wants to show Kate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that any sane person in the world would cover her with kisses instead of blows and cruel words. She wants to feel the length of Kate’s sweet, soft, lovely body against hers. She wants to breathe her in until the nearness of her doesn’t hurt any more. Because it’s a fantasy, and fantasies don’t have to make any sense, Kate doesn’t shove Betty off and scream for help. In Betty’s fantasy, Kate kisses her back because they both need to feel alive. Life is for living, isn’t that what Vera was saying only yesterday? Didn’t Kate agree?

Betty can’t deny it any more. Kate isn’t the mousy little nonentity Betty wanted so badly to dismiss her as. She’s brave and kind-hearted, and Betty likes her. More than that, she fancies her. What a mess Betty’s gotten herself into. She should’ve run a mile the moment Kate started singing. That should’ve been the tip-off. Because sure, Kate is a talented singer, but nobody else on the line went up to her afterwards and started saying Kate’s voice was enough to make them almost believe in God.

Betty is an awful person. This terrible thing has just happened to Vera, and Betty’s thinking about kissing another woman. Not just any woman, but someone who is so very good, and innocent, and has obviously had a bad enough time of things without having some disgusting freak lusting after her. Kate would be horrified if she knew. Everyone would. Everyone thinks Betty’s so loyal and decent, but really, she’s just a filthy degenerate, a good-for-nothing pervert...

She closes her eyes and shakes her head, to try and stop herself from wanting to kiss Kate. Her mind obliges. All she can see behind her lids is Vera dangling from the ceiling, crying and clawing at the hook in her scalp. Betty remembers the sound of flesh tearing, and Vera hitting the floor, blood everywhere -

“Hey,” Kate says, bringing Betty out of herself. Her face is so sweetly concerned. “Hey. Come back.” Kate hesitates for a second before moving closer, like she’s trying to work up the brass to put her arm around Betty, or maybe even hug her.

God, Betty wants her to, so much...

“I’ve got to get back on the floor.” Betty scrambles to her feet. “Mrs Corbett will need me to help keep order.”

“Of course,” says Kate, looking embarrassed to have been thinking of girly things like embraces at a time like this. “Will you be all right?”

“I’ve got to be,” says Betty. She doesn’t turn her back to Kate, the way she really ought to. Instead, she turns to her and says, “C’mon.”

She strides back inside the factory, breathing hard, Kate walking half a step behind. There isn’t a person on the floor who will be pleased to hear what Betty is about to say. When she sees them standing there, in the exact same positions she left them in, Betty almost wishes she could just fade back into the crowd. Nobody put her in charge, but she can’t very well drift around shuffling her feet and snivelling, not when she told Kate that was the reason she couldn’t stay outside with her.

“Listen up, everyone,” calls Betty. Nobody reacts, so she repeats, “Listen up! We’re all gonna go into the canteen and do a roll call. Once everyone’s accounted for, we’ll see about getting the cleaners up here to...” She falters. She can’t bring herself to talk about mopping up Vera’s blood. “We’ll get the cleaners to do what needs doing. Then, I’m afraid it’s back to work.”

Her workmates are staring at her with dismay, resentment, even outright fear. “You’ve gotta be kidding!” someone blurts out. It sounds a lot like Hazel.

“We’re all worried about Vera, but we’re not gonna find anything out before Mrs Corbett gets back from the hospital. Besides, there’s five hours left of shift, and we’ve gotta make quota.” Betty gestures to the doorway into the canteen. “So, everybody grab someone else, and let’s get moving.”

Slowly, grudgingly, the women begin to make their way off the floor. When Betty told them to grab a partner, she meant that they ought to buddy up, so nobody wanders off in a daze. Most of her co-workers seem to take her literally, putting their arms around each other’s shoulders, or even holding hands. Kate appears at Betty’s side. Betty isn’t – would never be – brave or foolhardy enough to touch Kate, so she just walks at her side.

“I thought you handled that very well,” Kate says quietly.

“I don’t reckon the others would agree with you.”

Kate shakes her head. “You did what needed to be done. Sometimes it’s hard to be honest, when you think it’ll change the way people feel about you, but you did it anyway. I don’t think I could ever be that brave.” She gives a little shrug as she says it, like it’s an unfortunate truth she’s long since accepted about herself.

Betty calls Kate’s name first, when they do the roll call in the canteen. Ordinarily, she’d think it was lucky that Kate’s surname is first in the alphabet, so it didn’t look too strange for Betty to think of her before anyone else. But Betty isn’t quite so worried about being strange as she was last night, or even an hour ago.

Betty thinks about those scars and bruises all over Kate’s back. It’s clear that Kate’s had to be plenty brave already, no matter what she claims. Looking at Kate, Betty feels this surge of warmth, this protective urge that just seems right. She’s never felt right before, liking another woman. It’s sick, of course, for Betty to melt inside whenever Kate laughs or smiles, to hang on her every word, to ache to kiss every sweep and line and curve of her. But the need to keep Kate safe is stronger than the sickness.

Betty feels like she could stand to want to protect Kate. She could feel that much, without cracking up under the strain of being around that much beauty and not being able to do anything with it. It’s only natural for Betty to want to keep Kate safe. It seems people have been shockingly remiss in that particular duty, up to now. Betty doesn’t give a damn how blasphemous it is to look at Kate and think, _God_ _must’ve slipped out the back to get a shave and a shoeshine, the day he ever let anyone hurt somebody like you._

If Kate can stand to have someone like Betty in her corner, then Betty will protect her with everything she’s got. But Betty can’t keep being furtive about it. It’ll drive her crazy. And Kate needs – deserves – to know that someone is looking out for her.

She’s got to do what needs to be done. Betty’s got to tell Kate that she knows that someone hurt her, and that if Betty has her way, no-one’s ever hurting Kate again. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to say it without accidentally telling Kate that she _likes_ her, that she’s _funny_ about her, but that doesn’t matter so much now. Kate’s safety is more important.

_Tonight,_ Betty thinks, with more certainty than she’s been able to think anything since Vera’s cry of pain slashed the factory air. _I’ll tell her, tonight._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: The film scene described in this chapter can be seen in the documentary The Celluloid Closet, which everyone should watch anyway because it’s totally boss.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Shaw Media/Global TV.

In less than a week, so much has changed at Vic Mu. Vera’s in the hospital, and nobody knows when she’s getting out. Edith will be back at work soon, but to be honest, Betty’s dreading having to face her. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose someone she loves as much as Edith loved Doug. What on earth do you say to someone, after that?

And then there’s the matter of Kate Andrews.

Yesterday, as they were leaving the factory at the end of shift, Kate started singing some hymn from the olden days, about the harvest being gathered safely in. She walked along at Betty’s side, singing like she’d had to contain the music all day long and couldn’t hold it in any longer. The sound of it seemed to stop time. Betty wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they’d reached the street car stop, only to find that years had passed and the war was over. She’s never allowed herself to get all girly and romantic over another woman before. She knows she’s in trouble. The way Betty feels is already so _big_ that she can’t help worrying that someone will see, and she’ll be hauled before the chaplain before the fortnight is out.

She doesn’t think they would have gotten so close so fast, if not for the other night. The night after Vera’s accident, Betty screwed up every ounce of courage she possessed and told Kate … told her that she knew that something bad had happened to her, and that she would look out for her. Since then, they’ve been friends. That in itself seems unbelievable, even though Betty has made quite a few female friends this year. There’s a scowling adolescent inside Betty who insists up and down that she doesn’t want to be friends with any silly, simpering girls. Betty knows as well now as she did then that the reason she’s always kept her distance from other women is because she was afraid of feeling like this. She’s spent her whole life petrified of looking at another girl and finding so much to _like_ about her, but it keeps happening over and over again.

How the hell can Betty stand to be around Kate, when Kate makes her feel this way? If Betty had any sense, she’d go off and find someone else sick like her. The thing is, Betty has a sneaking suspicion that her feelings for Kate aren’t going to be fixed by getting up to unspeakable things in the alley behind some bar with a secret knock. She doesn’t know if anything could fix it.

(Some moments, she doesn’t know if she _wants_ to fix it.)

Early on Friday morning, Betty lingers outside Kate’s room for a full minute before she gets up the nerve to knock. She puts her hands in her pockets and rocks back and forth on her heels as she waits for Kate to answer.

“Hi there,” Kate says as she peers around the door. She hasn’t let anyone inside her bedroom yet, although last night, Kate left the door open and the curtain hanging for twenty minutes while she made herself some tea and chatted to Susan and Phyllis in the kitchen. Betty felt rather proud of her, but she didn’t say so. It wouldn’t do to imply she notices Kate too much.

“Hey.” Betty gives her a cordial nod. “Wanna ride to work together?”

“I’d love to,” says Kate, grinning. Every morning up to now, Kate has been the one to ask, as if she thinks Betty has women lined up around the block wanting to sit beside her on the street car. If it were anyone else, Betty would let them ask and ask. Sometimes, she would make a point of saying no, just so it was absolutely clear that she’s just fine with riding to work alone.

She’s not so concerned about looking funny, now. Not when it’s just her and Kate. Kate deserves to know that people like having her around. And well, there’s something so lovely about how happy Kate looks to be asked that Betty suspects it’ll keep her in a good mood until lunchtime.

“D’you get out to the movies much?” Betty asks, as their street car approaches Vic Mu.

“Not really,” says Kate vaguely. “It wasn’t … always possible, moving around so much.” For a fleeting moment, the strangest expression passes over her face. An expression like she’s so tired, so sick with herself for having to lie or half-lie with every word out of her mouth. Betty knows that expression. She’s never let herself actually show it, but she’s felt it often enough, on the inside. “Actually, I’ve only ever seen one,” she says in a rush.

 _One movie in your whole life?_ Betty says incredulously inside her head. Aloud, she asks casually, “Which one?”

“ _Snow White._ ”

Betty can’t help but smirk a little. “You mean the cartoon?”

“My fa – my family were pretty strict. No hit parade, no romance magazines, and no movies. But my mom and I thought _Snow White_ would be okay, since I _was_ twenty-two at the time.” She says it all on one note, poking fun at herself. Betty snatches up that tiny anecdote and adds it to the treasure trove in her mind, the repository of Things I Know About Kate.

(Perhaps that’s another reason Betty feels so drawn to her. Kate seems so genuine, so utterly without pretence. It’s not an act, Kate _is_ both those things, but there’s a lot she doesn’t want to let people in on. A lot she wants to forget. Betty’s only too happy to help out.)

“Well, there’s a whole other world for you out there,” says Betty. “We should take you out to the pictures.” Then, because the idea of being alone in the dark with Kate for several hours is equal parts thrilling and terrifying, she adds hastily, “I think Aggie and Moira and them are planning a trip this week, to see some musical. You’d have fun. You should invite yourself along.”

“I couldn’t!”

“Yeah, you could. Invite yourself, and then invite me, okay?”

“All right then, I will,” says Kate abruptly. It throws Betty, as she had anticipated several more minutes’ argument. Kate sees the surprise on Betty’s face and laughs, settling triumphantly back into her stiff unyielding seat as though exhausted from hours of furious debate.

It’s after they’ve reached work that the unthinkable happens. Betty is just brushing imaginary specks of dust off the cuffs of her coverall, when a voice rings out across the change room. “Morning, ladies!” The accent is so unbearably cut-glass, Betty wants to sweep it straight out of the change room before it hurts anybody.

She doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s Gladys Witham. She still gets a shock when she turns, though. For some reason, Gladys is wearing a white coverall, like the girls who work the floor.

“Gladys?” Kate’s face lights up.

Betty folds her arms. “What the hell are you dressed like that for?”

Gladys draws herself up to her full height, which is, unfortunately, slightly taller than Betty. “I’m working the floor with you.”

“You are not,” Betty blusters. It is possibly the most pathetic retort she’s ever come out with in her life, but in her defence, Gladys looks so bizarre dressed like a floor girl that Betty is having trouble forming coherent thoughts. She’s far too immaculate, like a movie star playing a factory worker. She may as well tuck an orchid behind one ear and burst into song.

 _This has got to be a practical joke,_ Betty thinks, aghast. Only that doesn’t seem to be the case, because when Kate offers to help Gladys tie her turban, Gladys accepts. They look like little girls playing hairdressers at a sleepover. This is not appropriate workplace conduct. What is even less appropriate for the workplace is the pang Betty gets when she sees how thrilled Kate is to touch Gladys’ long, dark hair, like it’s something she’s wanted to do since she first laid eyes on her.

“This is such a surprise,” Kate says, laughing. “You being on the floor with us, instead of all the way up in the office.”

“Let me tell you, I had a terrible job _keeping_ it a surprise. My last day in the office, I kept wanting to come over to the two of you in the canteen, to tell you I’d be working with you soon. But I’m here now, and I can’t wait to get started,” says Gladys, with a significant look at Betty.

Betty’s smile is decidedly grim. “You’re not getting any special treatment here, Witham,” she says bluntly. “I’m gonna run you ragged.”

To Betty’s intense irritation, Gladys positively beams at these words. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

After inspection (which Gladys passes, thanks to Kate’s assistance), the Blues are sent out onto the floor. They’re working the stencil line again today. Mrs Corbett can sense that some of them have reservations, but she can’t afford to spare anyone, no matter what they witnessed on Tuesday. She picks the workers she deems least skittish to carry empty casings to the start of the line. That’s Betty and Kate. Betty feels ridiculously warm, having her name called aloud, along with Kate’s – warmer still when she notes with satisfaction that Gladys won’t be able to spend the morning tagging around after them, if they’re moving around and she’s at her work station.

Walking to the head of the line, Betty and Kate watch as Gladys holds a casing in gloved hands. She presses a tender kiss to it, leaving the imprint of her lipstick on it. “Go get ‘em,” Gladys tells it in a tremulous voice, before hanging it on a hook and watching misty-eyed as it rises toward the ceiling. It’s clearly a big moment for her.

Kate frowns. “Someone should probably tell her that casing is covered with chemicals.”

Sure enough, Gladys grimaces and surreptitiously wipes her mouth on her sleeve, leaving a red smear on her cuff. After a moment, she has to put her hand up for a sub and dash off to splash water on her face.

Betty rolls her eyes. “There, you see? She’s so – so ... Witham is all wrong for this kind of work, I’m telling you.”

“Give her a chance,” says Kate. “You did for me, and I was much worse than Gladys.”

Betty hopes Kate doesn’t see her reddening. “That’s different.”

“I don’t think so. Besides, with you training her up, I’ll bet a week from now, you won’t even recognise her.”

“Who knows if she’ll even make it that far?” Betty says hopefully.

“I have,” says Kate. It’s the first time Betty’s heard pride in her voice. Kate looks at Betty, and in one moment, she seems to take in everything about Betty: the swearing, the smoking, the trousers, the dirty jokes, and the short hair. Something else, too. Something maybe even Betty can’t see, or doesn’t know about yet. “Because of you,” Kate says, with a shy, sweet smile, and it makes Betty feel something she’s only felt once or twice before in her entire life.

When Betty was seventeen, she went to the movies to see this flick called _Morocco._ She’d heard people talking about this one scene where Marlene Dietrich sang in a fancy nightclub, looking stunning in a top hat and tails. That in itself was enough to pique Betty’s interest. It wasn’t like now, when female factory workers can wear their trousers off shift without raising too many eyebrows. Back then, women who dressed like men were considered deeply suspect, not patriotic.

In the darkened movie theatre, Betty slouched oh-so-casually in one of the cheap seats, busying herself with smoking cigarettes every time Dietrich and Gary Cooper had a scene together, until the nightclub scene came around. Dietrich certainly cut a dashing figure in her suit, but nothing, _nothing_ could have prepared Betty for what happened next.

After Dietrich finished performing, she made her way through the crowd of spectators, stopping in front of a young woman in a glittering, beaded shawl. Dietrich plucked a white flower out of the woman’s black hair. “May I have this?” she asked, her deep voice tinged with amusement.

“Of course!” the dark-haired woman replied.

Dietrich smiled to herself, gently tipped up the woman’s chin, and kissed her on the lips. The nightclub erupted into thunderous applause as Dietrich tipped her hat to the blushing woman. It makes Betty shake her head to think of the way she was then; rigid with shock in her seat, dropping cigarette ash all over her skirt, with every hair on her body standing on end. She was so young, and starving for something she couldn’t even say aloud.

It was the first time Betty had gotten confirmation that she wasn’t the only girl in the world who wanted to kiss women. And it wasn’t just anybody who was like Betty. It was Marlene Dietrich, a beautiful, famous actress! Betty had a tough time not fainting on the spot. It wasn’t because of Dietrich herself, it was just that Betty was so _relieved._ If a big movie star like Marlene Dietrich could kiss a lady in front of the free world without caring what people thought, then why not Betty?

As soon as she left the movie theatre and walked back into the harsh light of day, it became abundantly clear why Marlene, and why not Betty. Marlene lived in Hollywood, not rural Saskatchewan. Marlene didn’t have to hear her own brothers groaning in disgust over Clement Gilroy, that goddamn sissy, that mama’s boy, who got his teeth kicked in outside their town’s one crummy dance hall for looking too long at another guy in the men’s room. Marlene Dietrich didn’t have to look at anybody she loved and wonder if they’d stand up for her if she got her teeth kicked in too.

For one shining hour, though, Betty felt like it could be okay. Being with Kate, she feels the same way. This is how she can keep being around Kate, even though she likes her. It’s because in these moments, with just the two of them, Betty doesn’t feel sick. Not even a little.

“I’ll give it a chance,” Betty says, before amending it to, “I’ll give her a chance. Gladys Witham, I mean. But if she messes up, I’ll let her have it.”

“Yes, I know,” Kate says, biting back a grin, the same way she did when Betty said that dopey thing about oceans and lakes. This time around, it makes Betty want to do something totally insane like – like put her arm around Kate’s waist and introduce her to people as “my girlfriend.” She couldn’t ever do that, of course, but it is okay for her to want to. Perhaps the fact that Betty is a woman doesn’t mean much, when someone is as beautiful as Kate. Betty couldn’t _not_ like her. It would be just plain stupid, not to want to keep her safe. It would be impossible to look at someone like Kate and not melt inside.

“From now on, I’m not holding back,” Betty says. Though Kate doesn’t seem to realise, Betty knows she’s not talking about Gladys any more.


End file.
